1. Field
An air conditioner is disclosed herein.
2. Background
Generally, an air conditioner is an apparatus that keeps indoor air cool or warm using a refrigeration cycle including a compressor, an outdoor heat-exchanger, an expansion valve, and an indoor heat-exchanger. That is, the air conditioner may include a cooling device to cool indoor air cool and a heating device to heat indoor air. The air conditioner may be designed to perform both cooling and heating functions.
When the air conditioner is designed to perform both the cooling and heating functions, the air conditioner may include a four-way valve to convert a flow passage of a refrigerant compressed by a compressor in accordance with operational conditions, that is, a cooling operation and a heating operation. During the cooling operation, the refrigerant compressed in the compressor may flow to the outdoor heat-exchanger through the four-way valve, and the outdoor heat-exchanger may function as a condenser. The refrigerant condensed by the outdoor heat-exchanger may expand in the expansion valve, and then, flow into the indoor heat-exchanger. In this case, the indoor heat-exchanger may function as a vaporizer. The refrigerant vaporized by the indoor heat-exchanger may be redirected into the compressor through the four-way valve.
During the cooling operation of this air conditioner, when the refrigerant flowing into the indoor heat-exchanger is supercooled, efficiency is improved.